Dan Kennedy's blog on media and politics • published by the Boston Phoenix from 2002 to 2005

Friday, April 02, 2004

WOLF BLITZER'S BAD TWO
WEEKS.New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the
Incomparable Bob Somerby are ganging up on CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Not
that Blitzer doesn't deserve it. Blitzer - normally about as
controversial as vanilla ice cream - was caught red-handed passing
along some ugly, anonymous White House spin about former
counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke.

Let's start with the
transcript
of Wolf Blitzer Reports from March 24. In an exchange with
CNN's White House correspondent, John King, Blitzer
asserted:

Well, John, I get the
sense not only what Dr. Rice just said to you and other reporters
at the White House, but what administration officials have been
saying since the weekend, basically that Richard Clarke from their
vantage point was a disgruntled former government official, angry
because he didn't get a certain promotion. He's got a hot new book
out now that he wants to promote. He wants to make a few bucks,
and that his own personal life, they're also suggesting that there
are some weird aspects in his life as well, that they don't know
what made this guy come forward and make these accusations against
the president.

Is that the sense that you're
getting, speaking to a wide range of officials?

King's response indicates that he
was at least partly appalled. Watch as he tries to get out from under
the weird aspects of Blitzer's questioning:

None of the senior
officials I have spoken to here talked about Mr. Clarke's personal
life in any way. But they offer a very mixed picture. They say
that he was a very dedicated, a very smart member of the senior
White House staff, that he was held over because of his expertise
in the Clinton administration on terrorism issues and the Bush
administration, these officials say, wanted a smooth
transition.

They also say, and many top
Clinton administration officials support this, that Richard Clarke
could be irritable. He could sometimes get angry at those who did
not agree with him. That is an opinion shared in both
administrations. And, in the end, of course, he did not get the
No. 2 job at the Department of Homeland Security and he decided to
move on.

Next up: Krugman. In his
Times column this past Tuesday,
Krugman included Blitzer in a wide-ranging roundup of
Bush-administration smear tactics, writing:

But other journalists
apparently remain ready to be used. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer told his
viewers that unnamed officials were saying that Mr. Clarke "wants
to make a few bucks, and that [in] his own personal life,
they're also suggesting that there are some weird aspects in his
life as well."

This administration's reliance
on smear tactics is unprecedented in modern U.S. politics - even
compared with Nixon's. Even more disturbing is its readiness to
abuse power - to use its control of the government to intimidate
potential critics.

On Wednesday,
Somerby incomparably skewered Blitzer's pathetic attempt to defend
himself against Krugman's charge that he was used. Yesterday,
Somerby was back, showing how Blitzer's idiocy had its roots in an
interview he conducted with Republican Party spokesman Jim Wilkinson
on March 22, when Wilkinson lied to Blitzer's face about Clarke and
Blitzer didn't have the wit or the guts to take him on.

Today
Krugman is back, putting a punctuation mark on the whole matter. He
writes:

Stung by my column, Mr.
Blitzer sought to justify his words, saying that his statement was
actually a question, and also saying that "I was not referring to
anything charged by so-called unnamed White House officials as
alleged today." Silly me: I "alleged" that Mr. Blitzer said
something because he actually said it, and described "so-called
unnamed" officials as unnamed because he didn't name them.

To put it mildly, there is no
excuse for Blitzer's laying down and then attempting to justify his
asleep-at-the-wheel act. Any members of the national media who were
still laboring under the misapprehension that they could get a
straight answer out of this White House should have at least figured
it out by last September, when Dick Cheney went on Meet the
Press and flat-out
lied to Tim Russert about
(among other things) whether he still receives money from
Halliburton. Russert was notably more energetic when he
interviewed
the president on February
8; the result, predictably, was a disaster for George W.
Bush.

The White House couldn't have made
it any clearer that lies and personal attacks will be crucial weapons
in its campaign arsenal this year. If Wolf Blitzer isn't prepared,
well, let him host a cooking show or something. It's war out
there.

RON CREWS, HATE-MONGER.
David Guarino reports in today's Boston Herald that a lesbian
foster mother is being investigated for allegedly
raping a 15-year-old girl
in her custody. Sadly, stories about foster parents sexually abusing
their charges are hardly unusual. But get this:

"It appears that children
in homosexual relationships are not as safe," said Ron Crews of
the Massachusetts Coalition for Marriage. "Homosexual
relationships are less safe."

Will Archbishop Seán
O'Malley distance himself from his sleazy political partner? You can
be sure he won't.

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About Media Log Archives

The Boston Phoenix's Media Log was launched in 2002 by the paper's then-media columnist, Dan Kennedy, who continued it until he left the paper in 2005. The Phoenix's current media columnist, Adam Reilly, is now the author of Media Log, which has since been renamed Don't Quote Me. Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, blogs at Media Nation.